Bloomberg Considering Charging For Garbage Pickup in NYC

There was a move Thursday to spin garbage into gold. NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he’s thinking about plugging his budget gap by charging New York City residents a fee for trash removal. City residents produce 11,000 tons of trash every day. Collecting it is covered by taxes.But there is a proposal to separate garbage collection from general taxes, and charge people for what they throw away, based on how much it is.

Plenty of New Yorkers are turning up their nose at the idea.

“I’m very much against it,” one resident said.

“I think we pay a lot of taxes already,” another added.

Mayor Bloomberg said while a trash fee is far from “in the bag,” he refused to rule it out as the city struggles with a financial crisis.

“Everything will be on the table,” Bloomberg said.

Some were trashing the mayor over this.

“I don’t think he can relate to the working class people. We don’t have that kind of money, especially now. It is very unfair to us,” Flushing resident Phyllis Dennett said.

“We’re talking about thousands of dollars. I have a house. I mean, you should see how much trash we actually throw out each week,” added Richard Mejia of Ozone Park.

Excessive waste is precisely why proponents of the “pay as you throw” plan said the city should do it. If you generate only a little bit of garbage you’ll pay less than a neighbor who throws away more. And recycling would still be free, and give people a greater incentive to go green.

“On the one hand I think it’s a great idea for improving recycling and also reducing waste. People would just throw out less,” said former Sanitation commissioner Brendan Sexton.

But opponents call it a double tax and they won’t be happy until a plan they say stinks is kicked to the curb for good.

Critics of the plan said it would result in people throwing away garbage in city bins, or sneaking it over to their neighbors’ cans.

8 COMMENTS

If this will be based on usage, let’s charge for each call to 911. the more police calls to a neighborhood, the higher the ‘Police tax’. In a fire-prone neigborhood, there can be a per user ‘Extinguishing Tax’. But it should work both ways – how about a REDUCTION for neighborhoods that eschew certain services, like PUBLIC EDUCATION or FDNY EMS?

Disgusting behavior of mayor blumberg I hope it gets kicked out, what a nerve and bare in mind that this will cause people to throw their garbage in their neighbors pale and its not even stealing because I didnt take anything from you, what a sick mayor and this will cause people to hate jews more cuz the mayors jewish, as if we need more anti semitisim, and as if we need more bills!

By Charging a fee this means that rent I’d going to go Up as well, with the minimum wage now people won’t be able to even buy a hot dog lol. It has it’s Pros and Cons but I most definitely go against it, New York is getting expensive and to raise a family now it’s going to even harder.